Added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1982

To put it bluntly, the Golden Gate Theater has gone through hell. For 65 years, this movie palace in unincorporated East LA stood shoulder-to-shoulder with an architecturally impressive group of shops and apartments called the Vega Building. After sustaining damage in the Whittier Narrows earthquake, the entire Vega structure was demolished in 1992. The Golden Gate Theater was the sole survivor of the original complex, but it spent the next 20 years locked in an intense preservation battle, as property owners, attorneys, historians and community organizations fought over its fate. All the while the Golden Gate was left abandoned, its once-grand art deco interiors covered in grime and graffiti. Eventually a plan was hatched to lease it to CVS – clearly a less than ideal match on spiritual and aesthetic levels, but at least the theater still stands, its baroque stonework now beckoning customers inside to buy deodorant and cheap seasonal decorations. 

So how did we get here? Let’s go back to the beginning. 

Curtains Up

The 1920s was an era of explosive growth for the film industry, and movie theater construction exploded right along with it. “Millions Being Expended for Southland Theaters” proclaimed a full-page Los Angeles Times feature from December 18, 1927, which included line drawings and brief descriptions of seven SoCal theaters under construction, including the Golden Gate Theater.

FOR VEGA CORPORATION: The Vega Corporation, of which P.N. Snyder is president, awarded a contract last week to A.V. Perkinson and company for the erection of a theater to cost $270,000 and which will be located at Atlantic and Whittier boulevards.

-“Amusement Centers Constitute Great Item in Current Construction,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1927

PN Snyder was a well-known developer, called variously the “Father of Atlantic Boulevard” and the “Father of East LA,” who spent years convincing property owners and civic leaders of the wisdom of extending Atlantic all the way from Pasadena to Long Beach. Along Atlantic he conjured up residential communities and commercial zones, including the mixed commercial-residential Golden Gate Square.

Snyder envisioned a grand complex of Spanish-style buildings as the focal point of Golden Gate Square, including space for his own office and about a dozen retail shops in what he called the Vega Building. He hired architects William and Clifford Balch (also known for the El Rey and the Fox Pomona theaters), who designed him handsome rows of arched frontage and red-tiled roofs lining Whittier and Atlantic. The whole thing was sheathed in the flat, neutral-colored walls and wrought iron balconies that typified the Spanish colonial style so popular in the 1920s. An octagonal tower rose four stories from the corner; inexplicably, a weathervane in the shape of a stereotypical Native American with bow and arrow sat up on the top. 

In early photographs, you can see a pharmacy, a candy store, a barber and a dentist occupying the retail space. Later on the Vega Building leased space to jewelry shops, tailors, shoe repairs shops, photography studios, an ice cream parlor and more.

The Theater

The 1500-seat Golden Gate Theater was part of the same lot but detached from the Vega Building, just a bit south across an open courtyard, and accessible from the street via passageways from either street. The Balch Bros. went all out on the entrance to the Golden Gate, adding ultra baroque “Churrigueresque” details patterned after the portal to the University of Salamanca in Spain. Once you walked in though, the vibe turned from 18th century Europe to old Hollywood glamor. Water fountains covered in Batchelder tile highlighted the lobby, with silver and gold fish placed above them. You could buy popcorn and candy from a stylized seashell that housed the concession stand, and behind it you’d come to curving stairways up to the mezzanine and balcony levels. 

The Golden Gate was opened in 1928, a year after The Jazz Singer effectively ended the silent film era. But early on in its run, there was still a market for silent films, and the Golden Gate featured an orchestra pit (later filled in) and an organ bay built in to the right of the stage. The theater was fringed in elaborate ornamentation made of plaster, and painted to look like rock, wood or metal; completing the lavish interior were murals by the Heinsbergen Decorating Company (see visit #112 for their amazing headquarters), who also decked out the Pantages Theatre and the United Artists Theatre. 

Ownership Changes

In its original incarnation the Golden Gate was part of the West Coast Theatres chain, the largest operator of movie theaters in the southland at the time. It wasn’t long before West Coast merged with Fox Theatres to become Fox West Coast Theatres, which went into receivership in the early 1930s (thanks, Great Depression!) and was subsequently taken over by Charles and Spyros Skouras of National Theatres, a Fox Films subsidiary.

The Skouras brothers were famous for redecorating their theaters in trappings of fancitude, with low-hanging drapes and brass lighting fixtures and distinctive box-office booths incorporating swirl and swoosh patterns. The Golden Gate was lightly “Skouras-ized” in the 1930s and ‘40s – they added some new wall sconces, and it was during this period when the clamshell concession stand was built – but otherwise much of the original look of the theater was maintained throughout the changes in ownership. 

Decline and Fall

In the early decades of the Golden Gate, you might have seen a variety act in between films. After WWII, attendance gradually declined, and by the late ‘60s you could no longer find first-run movies there, though the theater was modified to accommodate the occasional rock concert. As of the ‘70s, films at the Golden Gate were screened with Spanish subtitles, a reflection of the changing demographics of East Los Angeles. LA Times articles from this era report on premieres of Chicano-centric films and Spanish-language live theater taking place there.

But the nadir of the Golden Gate’s run as a theater came on the morning of October 1, 1987, when the Whittier Narrows earthquake struck LA, causing major damage to the Vega Building and courtyard, and less severe damage to the Golden Gate itself. After an examination by the County of Los Angeles, officials deemed the Vega Building and courtyard to be safety hazards and ordered both sections demolished. The tenants were evicted, the Vega and courtyard were torn down in 1992, and for the next 20 years the Golden Gate swam solo, unused and abandoned in an ocean of concrete.

The Preservation Battle

So what do you do if you’re a property owner with a forcibly-demolished building on your hands, plus a theater in need of costly repairs? Owner James Angelopoulos first tried to work out a deal to transform it in 1993, but the developer backed out due to permitting issues. Then the Angelopoulos family tried to get the Golden Gate delisted from the National Register, ostensibly to eliminate any hurdles to tearing it down and selling it. 

The theater’s revised NRHP nomination form reprints reams of correspondence from Jerry Neuman, an attorney for the Angelopouloses, arguing that the Golden Gate Theater no longer possessed many of the aspects of historic integrity required for its NRHP status. I know the guy was just getting paid to be evil on behalf of his client. Still, it’s a brutal read.

On the un-evil side was the LA Conservancy, who cited the Golden Gate as one of the few remaining examples of Churrigueresque architecture in LA, and as a well-reserved archetype of the neighborhood movie palace that flourished in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. Architectural historians David Gebhard & Robert Winter (authors of the local building bible, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles) agreed with the Conservancy, as did LA County Board of Supervisors member Gloria Molina:

Since my term on the Los Angeles City Council, I have been actively involved in preserving the Theatre because of its great importance to the history of East Los Angeles.

The facade of the Theatre and the interior boxes to the right and left of the center stage are still in excellent condition. The Theatre’s sign is currently in storage at the County Road Department maintenance yard. The concession stand is an extraordinary sea shell shape. The detached ticket booth also reflects the gilded age of moviegoing.

The revised documentation continues to substantiate the architectural significance of the Theatre, which is a landmark in the truest sense of the word. It has strong associations of place and architectural importance to the community and to the City.

-Gloria Molina, July 29, 1994 correspondence with Dr. Patricia C. Martz, Chair, State Historical Resources Commission (included in NRHP nomination form)

In 1995, the State Historical Resources Commission sided with the preservationist camp, and recommended that the NRHP uphold the Golden Gate Theater’s historic status. Later that year the Keeper of the National Register confirmed that it would stay listed, effectively ending the owner’s plans to demolish. 

From Theater to Pharmacy

Ensuring that a historic building won’t be torn down is very different from securing the funds to restore it. It would take another 17 years for the Golden Gate to reopen in its next incarnation. One plan was floated by the MTA to buy the property and refurbish the theater as a new Metro station at Atlantic and Whittier. Some wanted it to become a community performing arts center. Neither plan got off the ground. 

In the meantime, the theater stood unused and in bad shape. Interior photos from 2009 & 2011 show an empty shell of a theater, covered in graffiti and peeling paint, with broken glass and huge holes in the walls. Structurally it’s totally recognizable, but it’s in bad need of some major love. 

In 2003 Charles Co. of Beverly Hills stepped in to purchase the property. When rumors started flying that they would lease it to Walgreens, the preservation community raised some understandable concerns. Would the new owner totally obscure the most theatrical parts of this theater with a dropped ceiling and track lighting? “It may not fit the cookie-cutter approach for a national chain in the once-great shell of a theater,” opined Ken Bernstein, the Director of Preservation Issues at the LA Conservancy at the time (he’s now at the LA Department of City Planning, and the author of the most excellent Preserving Los Angeles). 

When a CVS finally opened its doors at the former Golden Gate in 2012, some of the fears were allayed. The high ceilings and balconies are still plainly visible. The ornate soffits are still on the undersides of the balcony. CVS attached lighting to the tops of shelves, instead of potentially damaging the ceilings. The clamshell concession stand and tiled water fountains are safely packed and stored, in case a future tenant wants to install them again. 

Is it weird to see a row of bathrobes and greeting cards underneath an intensely filigreed organ grille? Yes. A building that evokes 1920s Hollywood glamor is an odd fit for something as mundane as a chain drugstore, and honestly that fluorescent lighting is just awful. But there is also something beautiful in the compromise that has yielded this state of affairs. CVS gets the strange branding associated with occupying a unique historic property, and building lovers get to admire a nicely-restored building in a style you just don’t see much of in this city anymore. 

And I keep thinking back to the long-gone Vega Building, which had a pharmacy in one of its storefronts for much of its history (check the business under the tower in the above photo from 1956). Maybe this property has come full circle: the Golden Gate Theater is finally reunited with its old paramour, the drugstore. What’s that old saying? The more things change…

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ “Amusement Centers Constitute Great Item in Current Construction” (Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1927 – via ProQuest)

+ Counter, Bill: “Fox West Coast” (Los Angeles Theatres blog)

+ Counter, Bill: “Golden Gate Theatre” (Los Angeles Theatres blog)

+ “CVS/Golden Gate Theatre” (LA Conservancy)

+ GELA Cultural Heritage Survey Team: Golden Gate Theater’s NRHP nomination form

+ Gerdes, Steve & Michelle: “Golden Gate Theatre” (Flickr photo gallery)

+ Hemmerlein, Sandi: “Photo Essay: Golden Gate Theatre (Now CVS)” (Avoiding Regret, February 7, 2013)

+ Jarvis, Michael T.: “Cut to Whittier Boulevard” (Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2003)

+ Perez, Mary Anne: “EAST LOS ANGELES : Decision Delayed on Revoking Landmark” (Los Angeles Times, November 13, 1994)

+ Perez, Mary Anne: “EAST LOS ANGELES : Panel Backs Move to Preserve Theater” (Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1995)

+ Salgado, C.J.: “From Films to Pharmacy: Former East L.A. movie palace debuts in new role as drug store” (The Eastsider LA, August 20, 2012)

+ Weil, Martin Eli: “Peter Snyder ‘The Father of the East Side’ and The Golden Gate Theater” (1994, included in NRHP nomination form)

+ “Whittier Boulevard Unit Rising” (Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1927)